Old playwright having no bottle has eg a whisky accompaniment (9)
I believe the answer is:
cowardice
'old playwright' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't understand how one could define the other.
'having no bottle has eg a whisky accompaniment' is the wordplay.
'having no bottle' becomes 'coward' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'has' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'eg a whisky accompaniment' becomes 'ice' (whisky might be served with ice).
'coward'+'ice'='COWARDICE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cowardice that I've seen before include "Severe lack of courage" , "Yellowness" , "court-martial offence" , "Spinelessness" , "Lack of courage, pusillanimity" .)